Clerks II: Time Has Not Been Kind to a Cinematic Franchise Based on Youthful Vulgarities. Sorry, Kevin.

In 1994, Kevin Smith came out with "Clerks," a story centering on Dante Hicks, a neurotic convenient-store employee, and Randal Graves, his obnoxious best friend invested with the joyful cynicism of any guy in his 20s. If there were ever a slacker film to beat, "Clerks" was it: Shot in some art-house-type black-and-white with actors who couldn't really act and a script that didn't really have a plot, "Clerks" became the first of a series situated in a meta-universe that Smith continued to build over the next 10 years, bringing in legions of lazy but dedicated college fanboys.

But something happened somewhere between "Clerks" and its upcoming reprise, "Clerks II"-something sinister to Smith's youthful credo of films prior. Kevin Smith, comic book collector and quiet sidekick, decided he wanted to grow up and take himself seriously. About a decade after the first "Clerks," he said he wouldn't ever do another film featuring the colorful characters from the View Askewniverse again, even if he did recast and recycle some of its star performers.

So Smith tried to break out of the twentysomething ennui he captured so well in "Mallrats," the witty poking of organized anything, including religion, in "Dogma" and even the postmodern lesbian-conversion love story of "Chasing Amy." And when the Ben Affleck-vehicle "Jersey Girl" flopped with both box offices and cult fanatics alike in 2004, Silent Bob must have panicked and floundered-assessed his life situation, his past directorial work. Then, to fully realize and present the obligations of his newfound adulthood, he conveniently treaded back to the world he created and is, apparently, doomed to live in.

As "Clerks II" opens in black-and-white, Dante, who has stunningly aged into Ricky Gervais, opens the QuikStop to discover brilliantly colored red flames; Randal, now looking like a beer-bellied former frat boy, has accidentally burned the store down. The rest of the movie plays out in color, as transparent a metaphor as any to signify the beginning of their new phase, and ends in black and white for the same reasons.

The pair goes to work as burger-flippers at Mooby's, a fast-food/entertainment empire, where their boss Becky, played by the impossibly hot Rosario Dawson, had a one-night fling with Dante despite his engagement to a pretty blonde in a tracksuit. Meanwhile, Randal, with the help of awkward but sincere geek Elias, organizes a donkey show-a live-action sex performance between a woman and an ass-as a final farewell for Dante, whose fiancee plans on moving him out to Florida with a new life and a guaranteed job at her daddy's car wash.

The problem with "Clerks II" is that Smith sacrifices the potty humor for embarrassing lines to move a crappy plot, whereas he would have been better off abandoning the untenable storyline for scatological one-liners. When Dante stares deep into Becky's eyes and coos, "If anyone can make me stay, it'd be you," it's beyond mortifying, enough to make you shy away from the screen with the same awkward embarrassment felt between, appropriately enough, those emotionless exchanges between Padme and, according to the oft-derided "Lord of the Rings" fans, Mannequin Skywalker.

Other than some truly funny moments, X-rated jokes are forced out of the mouths of disillusioned 30-year-olds with unspectacular futures. "Clerks II" is supposed to be a growing-up movie for Dante, Randal and, most importantly, Smith himself, but the soundtrack of Smashing Pumpkins and Alanis Morissette, both 90s alt-rock staples, as well as the Princess Leia braids Dante's fiancee sports when he effectively casts her off, puts a blurry, nostalgic focus on their dead-end, QuikStop past.

So by the time the final deus ex machina rolls around, it's just the same old hat: Just as the "Clerks" duo is back where they started and where they, presumably, belong, Smith once again occupies his self-made space. It's not growth and it's not a refusal of growth, either. What it seems to be is the final acceptance of aging, and with that, mediocre lives and careers. And that's pretty much the least funny Kevin Smith can ever really get.

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